Z Kunda - The case for motivated reasoning
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2270237/

Still reading Witch House though. But the dimensions and machine elves are great so far.

"The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" and "The Dreams in the Witch House" stand out as the key Lovecraft stories for fictive sacralization. I still have a little bit left in the complete fiction though.

At work "good catch!" feels awesome and "we talked about this" feels like shit ugh

They got hard drives full of shady files
Fire cruise missiles over a range of miles
You still pay to cross the turnstile
And most of us still spend our days in denial

The strangest things can happen collapsing
Reptillian complex dominates your synapses
Wipe your ass with napkins you stole from the hapless
Keep the strap and vest next to your mattress

My Mom has taken dozens of plants of varying sizes, some quite large and heavy, outside for the fresh air and sunlight. Well, where I live we're still getting frost/cold. At first I was like fuck those plants but when I realized I had a few minutes I was like wait a minute WTF am I thinking/doing.

I've read the Garfield translation and commentary on Nagarjuna's MMK (it was challenging but awesome) but I haven't read any Wittgenstein!

Re: Nagarjuna sometimes I wonder if his lines about grasping a serpent wrong or miscasting a spell are about me 🤔

error value at the turn of the world error value returned burn the earth of your birth and put it inert in an urn the wholesome dare you to learn follow the merit you earn embark hastily on a voyage cross the …

new poem: jayalejo.com/2026/04/19/e...

And this process should truly be "Skillful" in pursuit of defined goals and informed by evaluating motivation and truth value of beliefs. Choose good beliefs for good reasons.

Marxism, Buddhism, Daoism, Chaos Magick, and Abrahamism are among my primary inspirations and sources of imported ideas.

The "Middle Way" of my "system" is to invent and assemble a durable belief system and invest in it, but to subject it to unceasing interrogation, criticism, revision, and modification.

The religion future-proofs by NOT future-proofing.

Abelief and Metabelief are the basis of choosing beliefs.

Views may therefore be nonrigorous but practical and I embrace contradiction, paradox, as well as heresy, blasphemy, apostasy, and schism in "the faith."

Traditional religions future-proof with static doctrine. Chaos Magick advocates arbitrary belief. My approach combines the two ...

My approach acknowledges not just the insufficiency of dualistic truth claims but the limits on study, practice, and realization each of us faces especially in these times.

I advocate provisional, pragmatic, eclectic, and syncretic analysis and synthesis of ideas along with novel invention.

Epistemological Skepticism, Buddhist Abelief, and Chaos Magick Meta-belief form the basis of my personal religion. From there we enter into motivated belief and truth value at the two levels of the Buddhist Two Truths Doctrine: Skillful Relative/Conventional Truth, and Ultimate/Absolute Truth.

And this is deeply fucked up and why philosophy and religion can in principle be good things -- and obviously usually bad things.

Gold and dross, noise and signal.

"The dross of man is burned into his flesh by that he loves like molten gold, precious gold."

One final thought: it's completely possible to want to hurt and humiliate people you care about and love. In fact that's probably actually normal. Everything is complex, interconnected, amd changing from moment to moment -- including respect and esteem, especially when you reify and crave self/other

The question is, or rather they are:

1. How do you decide to act when you don't know the truth?

2. If it comes to it, will you stand up for what is right and good in this world, big or small, complex or simple -- even though you will lose and it will harm you?

But the scary part of this hypothesis is that the gaslighting and victim blaming etc are built right into the confidence amd charisma game -- in some sense proving them hollow, a paper tiger.

But even paper tigers can hurt you. The question isn't if overwhelming force proves confidence, charisma...

But honestly I'm pretty sure I'm just being schizo. Sometimes the disturbing experiences are 100% in your head. Just the nature of mental illness affecting how you interpret neutral events.

Some things should be treated as sacred, respected, inviolable, and approached with wholesome virtue, ethics, and morality.

Trying to flirt with and fuck your alleged close friends' partners or significant others is like this.

Likewise public humiliation rituals.

Combining both is especially sick

More likely I'm just being schizo. Going both for me and against me is that I'm not going into specifics. On top of that I think this is just simply the fallen state of humanity in a sense. Not letting people charm you is a virtue, as is not charming other people in a transgressive way.

Not saying I have been the target or victim of this recently. I mean I could choose to interpret others' characters unfavorably, chiefly some people who more obviously targeted others close to me and IMO showed their true colors -- behind a smokescreen of pleasant magnanimity and cheerful friendship

Certain subtleties of charisma and manipulation aren't lost on me, they don't all go over my head -- I just don't know how to process, respond to, or emulate them.

At times I've moralized about it, sometimes correctly. Really I just can't do it or I'd respond at that same level.

Like casual NLP.

fuck capitalism-imperialism push it to the limit possibilities are infinite but one single glimpse inside the sausage business makes you want to renounce the world and become a christian listen evil for the most part is unopp…

new poem i think it's better than usual: jayalejo.com/2026/04/16/f...

"If the Hour (the Day of Judgment) is about to be established and one of you has a palm seedling in his hand, which he can plant before the Hour is established, he should plant it"

"There's just nothing left for a Santa Claus when you take away his Christmas/ And it's plain to see they've no use for me/ So I guess I'll fade away/ Yes it's best to fade away"

“The pope should be careful before talking theology” is just extraordinary stuff. Top-shelf. You write one book that gets turned into a Ron Howard movie and suddenly you’re nailing your manifesto to the cathedral doors.

Resharing for later.

"Quitting Benefits: Quitting reduces risk immediately. After 15 years, a former smoker's lung cancer risk is almost the same as someone who never smoked."

... Pretty upset my psychiatrist told me differently. Oh well. One story that has hindered me but I should have quit for good by now anyway.

Teacher: Convert this fraction to decimal: 1/8 Me: 3.5 Teacher: *Hands on hips in disapproval*